Harnessing Intuition: A Deep Dive into Decision-Making, Authenticity, and Relationship Dynamics with Shoshanna Frenchstokes

Ever felt that gut-feeling, an inner urge, that turned out to be right? That's your intuition working, and on this episode with Intuitive Coach,  Shoshana Frenchstokes, we're going to get intimately acquainted with this internal compass. With nearly two decades of honing her intuitive skills, Shoshanna invites us into her fascinating journey of how she has been nurturing these abilities in herself and others. We'll discuss how intuition serves as a direct understanding channel, and how everyone can tap into this power differently.

Imagine envisioning the future, not as a problem to solve but as a reality to create. Shoshana and I will break down the art of decision-making, discussing the balance between logic, intuition, and emotion. We'll explore the captivating role of curiosity as a gateway to intuition, and the transformative power of mindfulness in harnessing it. A pivotal part of our conversation will also be about the dynamics of relationships: authenticity, trust in our inner wisdom, and how our behaviors influence our decision-making process.

Now, let's consider the power of introspection and communication in navigating relationships. How can journaling, experimentation, and curiosity lead us closer to our intuitive self? We'll explore all this and more. Shifting gears, we'll also explore resolving conflicts through an intuitive lens. Our conversation will conclude with an enlightening discussion about relationships and personal happiness, the evolution of relationships over time, and the importance of understanding our needs and desires. Shoshana will share profound insights on how intuition can deepen our understanding of our partners and guide our relationship decisions. Tune in, let's journey into the world of intuition together.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hi, friends, and welcome to Believe Like a Boss. I'm your host Life Coach, nandu Kamil. Join me as I teach you how to smash your goals and expand the possibility of your life through mindset management, spiritual alignment and authentic action. I'll teach you how to create what I like to call a life of thrive, with ease and authenticity. It's time to play with what's possible. Are you ready? Let's go.

Speaker 2: 0:29

Hello, hello, hello and welcome back to another episode of Believe Like a Boss. I am your host Life Coach, Nandu Kamil, and I am so excited to have you back for another episode, my friends, because this one is extra special. I have a very special guest, Shoshana French-Dokes, who has been such a pivotal part of my own coaching journey, who I met, I want to say, before I even declared that I was a life coach. I was just dabbling, I was just exploring and you were such a big part of my journey, so I'm so excited to have Shoshana here. Welcome to the podcast, Shoshana.

Speaker 3: 0:59

Thank you. It's been so fun to watch your journey over. It's been the last, like four, four and a half years, I think.

Speaker 2: 1:05

Yes, absolutely. I was just listening back to the podcast that I did before this and I misspoke at one point and was like I've been doing the podcast for five years and it's three years, but I was referencing that I've been coaching for around five years four and a half five years.

Speaker 2: 1:19

So you were a spot on you were a spot on, which is crazy, because I really think back to the beginning and you were huge in that, and so I'm so excited to have you here today and have you as a part of this podcast. What I would love to do is just start with you. Can you introduce yourself to everybody, tell us who you are and what brought you to being an intuitive life coach?

Speaker 3: 1:43

So I'm Shoshana French, as I say. Shoshana French Stokes that is my married name, but most people know me as Shoshana French. How I ended up doing what I do now is a very long story, but here is the very short version of it. I always knew I had a gift to hear people, listen to people, support people in things that are hard, help them come up with solutions. I've always been good at that, even when I was a kid. And then fast forward many years after personal and professional development work and being a coach for an educational company and all this stuff. It was like what do I want to be when I grow up and started a company where I was using my own gift, my own intuitive gift, for other people inside of session work? And then that kind of took a new form and I've been coaching people how to develop their own gift, and that's kind of how my current, most current iteration of my business came to be.

Speaker 3: 2:45

I love being an entrepreneur but, as you know, it's not easy and I will be have been in business in January this upcoming year, 19 years. So in 19 years it's changed a whole bunch of times. So what I currently like to say is that there are a lot of practical people in the world who are a little bit woo and there's no place for them to go and there's no people for them to talk to. That's my specialty. I work really really well with people who are a little bit skeptical and a lot practical and maybe curious like about what the woo is and they just want to like dip their toe in it and learn how to use it in their practical life, and that's what I'm really good at.

Speaker 2: 3:25

Absolutely and I 100% agree, because I think that's how our paths cross. We were just talking before we started recording of my Christian upbringing and now my spirituality is blossomed so much since then. But meeting you is very like I don't know what are these crystals and what are these chakras that we're talking about. What is this intuition? What is all of this? And I think that you did such a wonderful job of gracefully meeting me where I am and teaching me about intuition and teaching me how to lean into trusting myself. So I would love to just start the conversation there Talking about intuition. If I'm a brand new person and I'm listening to the podcast, I'm like what are you talking about? What do you mean when you talk about intuition?

Speaker 3: 4:05

So intuition is a direct way of knowing or understanding something or someone, but without any prior experience. That's it. That's what intuition is.

Speaker 2: 4:16

Beautiful. And if I'm trying to build my intuition, if I'm trying to lean into that, what would be a way that I could start to lean into my intuition or even see if it's there, or start? How do I access this knowing?

Speaker 3: 4:31

That is a really deep question really, in all honesty, I'm like, oh, my goodness, how much time we got my friend, how much time do we got Okay? Well, so I'll say it like this, which is, if you're someone who is brand spanking new to not intuition necessarily, because I rarely meet someone who doesn't who can't speak to some experience they've had with intuition so let's just say that you're not completely, completely new to intuition, but you are new to wondering what is it exactly and how do I access it. Instead of it sort of like, accidentally talking to me, just most people's experience with intuition, oh, I got a bad feeling, or I just felt like I knew them and I found out that we knew the same people and we grew up four blocks from each other. But if you want to actually use your intuition, I find that it is extremely helpful to recognize how it works. So there are different ways that intuition works. It's not the same for every single person. There are some things that are similar, but how it looks for each of us is really different, right? So if I'm talking to somebody who has a very, very spiritual, more traditional religion but very spiritual upbringing, when I talk to them about intuition. They already have some experience in what is the unseen right the Holy Spirit, for example, for people who are Christian. So it's not that far of a leap to think that the Holy Spirit can move through you and that the ways it moves through you. You might be picking things up about other people, right, the gifts of spirit as the terminology more in Christianity discernment or prophecy or counsel right. But if I'm talking to somebody who's really super skeptical, which probably won't be anybody listening to your podcast, because people are attracted to you because you are so open, but let's say that there's someone like that listening and they're like well, I'm more practical, less about this, like religion or spirituality.

Speaker 3: 6:24

What I would say is pay attention and notice how you feel, both how your body feels but also your mood, like what thoughts are in your brain before and after you're with people you really like, because that gives you a sense of what are you picking up from them. We could think it's with our eyeballs, like what do we like about them? Oh, because they know about my past or they're just really nice, happy people to be with. But there's more to it than that, right in the world of unseen. So, and then pay close attention to when you're with people you find challenging. So those are the things I would say.

Speaker 3: 7:00

If you're listening to this and you're like well, I want to know how to tap into my intuition, just start with people, because you interact with them all the time. So notice when you're with people that you really enjoy. Pay attention to how your body responds and then pay attention to the times when you aren't really enjoying and finding people challenging. Notice how your body's responding to that. That's a really good indication of your intuition kind of communicating something to you and then you can just we need evidence. We're humans, right, our brain needs evidence, come on right.

Speaker 3: 7:33

So when you pay attention I'm not telling you to do it like happenstance-ly, like literally have you know, a notebook? And I like to what Sonya Choket, one of my favorite writers, calls it is an occurrence journal. So when that happens, write it down and then you'll have plenty of evidence written down about how your intuition told you about, oh, these three people in my life who I all enjoy. When I'm with them, my body feels light. Oh, that's interesting. I'm picking something up in that regard. And oh my gosh, I find these same two people completely challenging. And when I'm with them, my head feels like it's stuffed with cotton. Oh, that's a communication. Hmm, that's interesting. I wonder what that's saying about my intuition.

Speaker 2: 8:17

Absolutely. Oh, I love that. Okay, so there's two things in particular that you just said that I love that I want to highlight. One of them was that there's multiple ways of tapping into your intuition. I think that was really important and I wanted to capture that, because I think that my initial thought about intuition is oh it's, it's this Holy Spirit channel, it's this psychic channel, and you have it or you don't, or there's only one way to access it, or you only feel one way about it, and I think that you've done a really great job of explaining that to me and showing that to me. I think in that way, it takes a lot of the pressure off to of intuition. So, when you say that there are different modalities, what are some of the ways that you often see people accessing intuition?

Speaker 3: 8:59

So some of us are more connected to our physical bodies. So when we are with people or we're like, we step into a space that feels really good to us. Our body is the place that it shows up. So physical sensation in our body or emotions, right, we can be with someone and we're like just noticing that we're picking up on how they feel. And people who have that gift, by the way, are always like doesn't everybody do that? No, definitely not. So if you're listening to that and you're one of those kind of people no, not everyone has that gift Let me tell you they don't. It's my husband's gift.

Speaker 3: 9:39

And then some people they're more like you know, when people talk about telepathy, which is like a metaphysical word where you can read people's minds, it kind of is like that if you're a knower, if how you pick up is you just know things about people and there's no evidence, it's not like you're looking at them and it's obvious to you that you should trust them. But there is just something you know you can trust them and you're going to follow them onto the bus because they're telling you being at the bus stop this time of night is unsafe and you're just gonna follow them. You just trust it. Some people see things like, they look at people, or they look at like. When we walked into this house that's me, I'm a clairvoyant is the metaphysical term for it when we walked into this house where we live now, I saw it and I instantly knew it was ours, cause I could see it Like.

Speaker 3: 10:28

I just it looked right. That's the best way I can say it. And then the last way is some people hear stuff. So you know, I always think of the people talk about the voice of God and some people are like if you press them in about that, for some people the voice of God is not actually something that they're hearing, it's actually something that they felt in their body. But for me, I hear, I hear it.

Speaker 3: 10:53

So when my intuition comes that way, it's like someone is talking to me or I might hear words, or sometimes I'll wake up with a song. And this is you. If you wake up with a song in your head in the morning, sometimes like I don't, that for me is not like coincidental. I pay attention to songs I wake up with in the morning and then I go to my Apple music and I look it up and I listen to it and I go why did the song come to my head this morning? And sometimes it's the lyrics, but sometimes it's the music, like there's a feeling in the music that I needed to feel that day and that was the intuitive message. So those are the four different ways hearing, feeling, seeing and knowing.

Speaker 2: 11:36

That's beautiful. I'm actually getting chills while you're saying it, which I don't know if that's excitement or just like my own intuition tapping in. I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm so excited.

Speaker 3: 11:44

No, elizabeth Gilbert, follow the goosebumps right.

Speaker 2: 11:47

Yes, yes, I am definitely a resonator when you said that your husband is one of those people. And those people think everybody's like that. I guilty, guilty. I have assumed until just now that basically everybody can tap into their bodies. Thank you for that clarification.

Speaker 3: 12:02

You're welcome. Some people are really really tapped into their head and the thought of being tapped into the physical body is really confusing. And then some people are really tapped into the emotions. Right, you're someone who is a dancer, so you're very tapped into your body, but you're also someone who's very tapped into her emotions, so you're tapped into both. Not everybody's tapped into both. I would say that I'm more tapped into my body and tapped into my mind than I am to my emotions, like that's not the place I naturally go to, or in paying attention when I meet new people, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2: 12:38

Yeah, absolutely. It takes me back. I did have a client and I wonder if she would recognize herself as I'm referencing her now. I remember asking her to get into her body and she looked at me like I was crazy. And we tried more than once and then I stopped. I was like, okay, well, this isn't working, this is not working for her.

Speaker 2: 12:53

When I asked her to get into her body, nothing happened. She's like what? What? Nothing. She was just like this is not working for me and so we had to try other things. But that was one of the first times that I was like wait a second, this has always worked. So I love that you are clarifying that and I hope that that gives anybody that's listening a little bit of grace that maybe you can't, or not only grace, but maybe a little bit of confidence of like, oh yeah, I'm the person that wakes up in the morning and I hear a song, or when I am going through something I thought comes through my brain or a feeling comes through my body, I lean into that, my friends lean into that.

Speaker 3: 13:28

I think the other thing that's helpful when you start talking about how do you tap into your intuition is just recognizing what's the place of intuition, because it's not a panacea, like using intuition and everything doesn't make sense. Right, and probably I thought that for a long time. But I will say that there are three ways that we make decisions. One is very, very logically, and we use logic, meaning either our expertise, experience, the knowledge that we have, the knowledge other people have, and logic is amazing for solving problems, like amazing for solving problems. However, when you're in a relationship with someone you love and you've never been in relationship with them in this moment that you are dealing with, the thing that you're dealing with it's not actually a problem to solve, it's a something to create, it's a looking out to the future, and that's where intuition is most powerful, because it looks into what you don't already know. So what I always say is your access point to intuition is curiosity, and the more curious we are in relationship in general probably, as you know as a newly wed person, that the more curious you are, the better relationship goes, because it leaves things open for possibility and communication. And then the third way we make decisions is emotional reaction and obviously that is very ineffective. So always what we're trying to do is go oh, is this an emotional reaction? Okay, got it. That's not super useful.

Speaker 3: 15:02

Let's see if I can go to my cognitive mind Is this the problem to solve? Nope, I need to create something. Okay, now I'm gonna use intuition, intuitive decision making. So for me, that's the thing I'm always asking myself. Like, if my car breaks down, I don't need my intuition. Like, I'm not gonna pull my pendulum out and try to figure out if I should walk to the gas station. No, like, if my car breaks down, that's a problem. Let's solve it with the most logical, direct course of action Call AAA, call someone to come get me get a tow truck. Right. But intuition is good for the bigger picture of things, innovation, possibility. So that's the other piece I would add about tapping into your intuition.

Speaker 2: 15:41

Beautiful and I'm so glad that you added that too, because I think that maybe it's my ego or maybe it's actually happening out here in the world that there's this thought of that if you are engaging in your intuition, you choose to use it. Did you just like drift off to this woo-oo land where, when your car breaks down, you'd like what should I do? Like I thank you for clarifying that. We're not here talking about that. We're talking about the balance between the two when to tap into that intuition and create and when to use the logical brain. And let's open up those places where we might use that intuition. But I love that clarification so much because my brain feels like there's people out there judging us, thinking that we actually do this.

Speaker 3: 16:20

In our car breaks down? No, and you know like, come on, we're not. I mean, yes, I've been practicing, studying intuition for 29 years, but I'm not omnipotent and I'm not like I'm not everywhere all the time and things change, like energy changes, so it's not like you're using it in a predictive way. Where it's most helpful, useful, is in the current moment, which is why I often talk about mindfulness as an aspect of tapping into intuition. Right, and mindfulness is a much easier, much more consumable conversation with people than psychic phenomenon. Right, like you can talk to people about mindfulness and they're like, oh, that's that thing to manage stress, right, and I'm like, yup.

Speaker 2: 17:09

That door open. Yes, it guides the way. Love that. The second thing that came up for me when we started was for the person that's listening. They're like okay, I'm going to start to listen to my body when I am with people that I love and when I'm with people that I don't love so much, and I'm going to start to notice things. All right, I'm starting to notice that I have energy and I am lighter around certain people and noticing that I'm feeling drained or frustrated around other people. What do I do with this information? What do you suggest?

Speaker 3: 17:40

What I recommend is you start to identify who are you when you're with people that you feel most at home and most enlivened by, because that will begin to help you identify not just the energy of something, but also who are you letting yourself be with the people in your life where you feel most at home? Because that being that person is useful, to be given permission to be that person in more places. When we are really ourselves, we are more present, we're listening to ourselves, we're trusting ourselves, and that gives us greater access to our own inner wisdom, which is part of what intuition is. And in those places where we feel really not at home, where we feel really, really challenged, we can ask ourselves the I think these are good questions, which are often the questions I'm asking of clients when I coach right which is what has you returned to the places where you don't feel at home, where you don't feel most yourself, and did you know that that was how that was going to be? Did you feel, did you see, did you hear that you knew really, like without question, that that was how it was going to be with them? And why do you act in a way against yourself? Because, for me, intuitive decision making is something that you have to create as a habit. So you have to recognize first why you have the habits you already have before you shove in a new one. Doesn't work super great to shove in a new one if you haven't done the kind of inner work and awareness to recognize.

Speaker 3: 19:25

Well, gosh, I wonder why I still go visit my you know my uncle, joe, who is a flaming racist and a drunk. But I go, and when I'm with him I feel so uncomfortable. But why do I go? And you go to yourself. You're like, oh my God, I totally know why. Because I feel like you should. That's what it is to be a good family member is to put up with people who suck. And you're like, oh well, huh. And then you start to get really curious Well, could I be with Joe and be myself and see how that goes? Or does it more serve myself and my inner wisdom can communicate to actually not go and be with him other than when there are other people around? And then you can make what I like to call a fully informed decision, right, a decision where you've tapped into your own inner wisdom and then you've used your really smart brain, our logic to determine best course of action.

Speaker 3: 20:24

Everyone, when their children, are intuitive. We are and we all have places where we're naturally intuitive. Right, when you dance, you're naturally intuitive, right? I've listened to you talk about dance, I've watched you dance and you can tell you are so fully present and in the moment when you dance, right, when I am gardening, I'm so fully present and in the moment there's nowhere else for me to be and there's nothing else for me to be doing. When I'm in that state of being, that is an intuitive state of being.

Speaker 3: 20:54

So everyone listening to this podcast has a thing they already do where they're in that state. It could be when they're running, it could be when they're cooking, it could be when they're loving on their children, it could be when they're sitting in this job that they totally love doing the thing that they love to do. I don't know right, that's for people to say, but the more you can find your pathway back to those places where you are fully and totally being intuitively tapped in, really like fully present in the moment, then using intuition doesn't become this thing that you have to like somehow grasp and figure out, but it just becomes a natural state of being. We have that natural state of being already. We just have to figure out why we're. Why we let ourselves be that way when we dance, but why do we not let ourselves be that way when we're having a hard conversation with the people we love?

Speaker 2: 21:52

Yes, yes, I'm just bathing and all of it right now. I hope that everybody listening is as well. I truly am, because there's so many golden nuggets that were just dropped there of the building, the trust with yourself. That's truly what we're talking about with this intuition. There's a playfulness there, there's a curiosity there, there's a leaning in of this feels right or this feels off. Why does it feel off? And what I love is you apply that mindfulness piece to it, taking a beat to get curious about why might this feel off? And if I already know that I'm going to feel this off way when I hang around these people, why is it that I keep putting myself in this situation? And you did it without blaming or shaming or guilting.

Speaker 2: 22:34

It's just being curious, why might I continue to be around there? Oh, and when we approach it from that way, the answers can more likely come in it's because that's what I think that I should be doing as a family member, and that's not a bad or wrong thought, and I love that we were able to get there. Just by being curious, just by being mindful, just by leaning into that off feeling of like I keep feeling off around this person.

Speaker 3: 22:57

Right.

Speaker 2: 22:57

And just taking the time to get curious as to why, and then making, like you said, an informed decision where we have our own back up. Can I love the two options there. Could I practice being my full self, my best self, around this person, right, might I try that on? That's an option. Or can I remove myself? I think so often we talk about the removal part, but I love that you brought in. What if I exercised bringing my full self to this area, even though I'm nervous, even though I don't know how this person is going to respond? What would you say to the person that's like, okay, I kind of like that idea, but I'm nervous, like how, how do I access my authentic self in a place that I'm not used to doing that? What would your thoughts be around that?

Speaker 3: 23:42

The first thing I want to say is we live in a time where we really love instant gratification and we have moved away from thoughtful contemplation and exploration, because exploration takes time. And when I say, like you could hear this, you could be listening to this amazing podcast and be like this woman is up on her high horse talking about everybody else, but truthfully, I'm not. What I'm saying is all of us. That includes me too, right? I do scroll on social when I don't want to deal with something. I'm human, right? What I would say is that if you are listening to this and you're like, okay, okay, like, there's this person in my life, that is really challenging, but he's somebody who is married to my best friend, so I have to be around him and I can't avoid him entirely. Can I be my full self with him? Okay, if I want to do that, but God, I'm nervous because the one time I did that right and like, all of that stuff starts. So here's what I would say Do an experiment, right. Do an experiment. Tap into your own inner wisdom and knowing, take out a piece of paper and write the question. So I know you really invite people, nandi, to do journaling and like to do reflective work, which I love about your coaching work. So I'm inviting whoever is listening to this to like, if you learn nothing else from our conversation, writing your thoughts down or even audio messaging I have some clients that don't like to write, so you can even like audio message yourself, doing the inner reflective work to ask yourself these hard questions. It helps you access your inner knowing because you have to get through the. You know your monkey mind and all of your like your, the frickin, your brain being like opinion, opinion, judgment, point of view, like you have to get through all of that so that you can then hear and see what arises. So this will be the question I would ask what is the part of yourself that you most don't want to share with that person? What's the piece that you've been holding back most for fear of rejection, being being made fun of, being embarrassed, being shamed like start there. What is that piece? So I'll share this, which you know how things go.

Speaker 3: 26:15

My dad is one of those people in my life. He's super challenging and I did a little experiment for about four or five months where every time we met for dinner I would come with questions, because if I didn't come with questions. The conversations kind of like the organ trail like, went right into those same little ruts. There was only one way to go and our conversations were terrible. I hated them. So I thought, let me bring questions. So I brought questions and you know that worked for a little while and then I asked myself this, this thought, like that, the same question I'm inviting other people to ask what is the part of myself that I'm unwilling to share with him for fear of embarrassment, shame, rejection?

Speaker 3: 27:03

My worldly outlook and view, and has been since I was a child, is that we are all God's children. Now do I use the same terminology? Now Maybe not, but we are all of a divine source right, and divine source flows through us. So in my world everybody is trying their best and we will find more collaborators than we will haters out in the world, and that is just my worldview Now.

Speaker 3: 27:32

For a long time my dad would call me naive. He called me Pollyanna. He told me that I had too much of my mom, who's a hippie, and me and that it was going to lead me to being hurt. So I kept that part kind of hidden from him. And so in February we had a meal and I just let that part rip. I just bead. I talked about my extraordinary clients. I talked about my neighbors, who I'm so grateful for. The family lives next to us with two little boys who we love. I talked about how diverse our neighborhood is and how important that is to me. It's a huge value of mine such a diverse age, nationality, all different kinds of people, and my dad had whatever he had to say about it.

Speaker 3: 28:15

And at the end of that conversation, what I could recognize and really, really really say after doing that experimentation was in my full power.

Speaker 3: 28:26

This does not make sense and I am not going to have dinner with them anymore because I'm an adult and I get to choose and I'm not going to make a big dramatic thing because that to me, would be about winning or being right about something, but instead I just trusted my gut right and I was like my intuition says that it is okay for me to not have to conform to his worldview and it's okay for me to have my own worldview and they don't have to be the same.

Speaker 3: 28:55

And I haven't had a meal with him since February and it has created a lot of space in my own inner wisdom to recognize the places, not just with my dad, but the other places where I diminish and shrink my optimistic voice, as it were, because not everybody's optimistic and I've been embarrassed about my optimism for a long time. So I'll just share that, because, wherever you are and whoever this person is that your, our conversation is bringing up for you, the end result could be that you could be with them and find a way to communicate with them that leaves you free to be you and leaves them free to be them, and the end result could be that it's not possible and there's nothing wrong with that end result. But you don't know unless you Listen, and that's what there was for me to do.

Speaker 2: 29:52

Yes, and again, the layers. They are being willing to be curious and have the experimentation and let me try this on. I want to try the questions. Okay, that's working. And now that's not working. Being willing to move with how life changes. And maybe this was working for a while, this pattern, this habit, this way of being, whatever it was. It's not working anymore. Okay, let me try this on. This isn't serving me. Okay, well, I'm showing up as my full, most loving, authentic self and this isn't working for me. I can choose to still show up in this relationship in this way, spend my time in this way, or I can check in and see this isn't for in alignment for me. But you again, it's that grace and space that I think that you said, it's that instant gratification. We want things to be fixed now and I'm guilty of that too Right.

Speaker 2: 30:34

I want things to be fixed now. I want things to be changed now. I want things to be better now. How do I make it better now? And I think that there's so much beauty in in like it doesn't feel beautiful in my insights 2020. But in the going through it, being with it, what am I feeling right now? Where do I feel like this is coming from and what do I want to do about it in a way that feels an alignment for me?

Speaker 3: 30:55

Yes, and that will be the piece about intuition. That doesn't always sound like fun to people is that it is. It is an experiment because when you're highly emotional about something, it can make hearing your intuition very challenging. When you are a really big expert about something, it can make hearing your intuition really hard. You know, I've worked with business people like I have a client who's a lawyer, who she is wicked smart. Every conversation we've had for the three years, three and a half years I've coached her. She writes out and then she types up her notes. Right, she's like that kind of she's a, you know, gold star, a student, and when we talk about exploration and we talk about inquiry, she's like this seems like the slow road. What's the fast road? She asked me that three and a half years ago and I was like, oh girl, this is personal growth, but intuition style, so it ain't fast. Growth is never fast.

Speaker 2: 32:03

Absolutely, I think that I think that I'm learning the hard way right now Chop, chop life.

Speaker 2: 32:09

And life's like sit down, be, and there's a beauty to it.

Speaker 2: 32:18

It doesn't, like I said, it doesn't feel beautiful in the moment, but when we can look back and I know that we've made this decision from such a mindful place, from such an empowered place, because we took the time yes, going from that which makes me want to do a soft segue, because we're talking about friendships into your relationship with your husband and how you navigate not only being married but also doing business together, and that I feel like we need a whole other episode for that.

Speaker 2: 32:44

But when you're let me try to make this narrow down when you're having a conversation with them, and maybe you two are on different pages, what are some tools that you would offer? So this is a relationship you've chosen to be in, that you've chosen not to walk away from. At this point, right Life can happen, but at this point you've chosen to be in this relationship. When you're in relationship with somebody that you're choosing to be in relationship with and you're in disagreement and your intuition feels really strong, but you're also trying to be open minded, what are some of the tools that work for you when you and your husband are trying to see eye to eye or come to a new conclusion or find a solution.

Speaker 3: 33:22

I would say this conversation is like in three parts, right? So one one is what? What is for us the creative context of relationship? Because that context is the thing we have to come back to when we don't see eye to eye. So for us, our creative context of relationship is that everything can be worked out in communication. So we are clear that that sometime, if it ever and we're very like, we choose each other and we choose each other every day, over and over and over again and year over year, and have now for 18 years right. But we know that everything being worked out in communication sometimes looks like what happened with my dad, where you complete right, where it's done. So we know that could happen.

Speaker 3: 34:10

However, we would never do a thing where I wouldn't know, or he wouldn't know, that that was coming, because everything can be worked out in communication. We would never be like I'm done because that's not working something out in communication. So for me, that's step number one is having that be in the background. It affects how I listen to our disagreement, because in the past, when I didn't have that context and it was kind of like I need to protect myself, or he's trying to tell me what to do, or I'm the boss of me, like all my young, like daddy issue stuff. Then when that would happen Right now we know that there are so many people listening to this there themselves that when all that stuff comes up, then everything they're saying you're listening from. Okay, how do I position what I say next so that he can see I'm right? How do I you know school my words? So then he'll realize that he is wrong. Like that's, that's really before we. We created that context, which was only 12 years ago when we got married. So it's a newish context, okay, but so the context is decisive, as they say. So I, that is the context for our conversation. So, and then there's like intuition. So when I find that I'm in conflict with someone, conflict is a something to be resolved, which to me means that intuition is not. That is not a good time to use my intuition in that moment. I find in that moment that that is a better time to bring my listening, like my ear, my ears attached to my brain kind of listening versus my intuition.

Speaker 3: 36:03

Intuition comes at the end, but in the middle here are some tools that I find super helpful. So one is being interested, so asking questions. I don't know about you, but when I am irritated, I think I am hearing what they're saying, but I'm not actually. And what I mean by that is maybe you could take a pen and a piece of paper and write down all the words they said, but you may not know what the intention behind their communication is. So I have found this tool to be extremely helpful and I've used it about five billion times because my husband and I are really different. We just are very different people.

Speaker 3: 36:47

So what I ask is I take a deep breath, but sometimes really out loud, so we can tell I'm irritated. But let's be real, it's better than I do that then be not very nice. So take a deep breath and then I say what was your intention in that communication? What did you want me to know? And you saying that, and that tends to work pretty well, because about seven times out of 10, he was also frustrated or is frustrated, and he said something in a way that does not land in my brain at all and his intention was actually not malicious or rude. And he's like let me try a different way. And he tries a different way, and I go oh, oh, oh God, that's what you meant, okay. Well, yeah, that's fine, like no big deal, right. But there are those three out of 10 times where you know he's a human too and he's just being a dick, and so me asking him that question has him be like well, I was trying to piss you off. Congratulations, you completely succeeded. Let me get your mother freaking gold star. Hey.

Speaker 2: 38:10

What would it leaves?

Speaker 3: 38:11

it so usually honesty though.

Speaker 3: 38:15

Yeah, it really does. Now here's the thing. People are going to hear this and be like I'm going to try this with my spouse. And the reason why it works with Steven, my husband, is because we have an agreement that everything can be worked out in communication. So we have an agreement that he has permission to be honest and say stuff, even if I don't like it. If you don't have that agreement with your spouse and they say something like well, I was just trying to piss you off because you are frustrating the crap out of me and you go like I didn't know it and you jump them, that is not an effective way to resolve that conflict. So that tool works really well if you have set the space for open dialogue.

Speaker 2: 39:02

Absolutely, absolutely so, having those precursors and making sure that we're on the same page when we're dialogue-ing. So that way, yes, I can be honest, and while you may not want to hear what I have to say, it lowers the reactivity. It allows us to be receptive instead of reactive is what I'm hearing.

Speaker 3: 39:20

Right Totally, and then you can keep going back to we are both committed to resolving everything. We're more committed to resolving than we are to being right. We're more committed to resolving than we are to. We are more interested in restoring connection, affinity and communication than we are in winning the argument. One of my very favorite books and I think it's just as effective in relationships as it is in marriages is Dr John Gott. I don't know if you know him, but he wrote a book called the Eight Seven Principles, or the Eight Principles for Making Marriage Work, and one of the principles which is the one that is, I think, the most important related to your question, which is solve the solvable. So mostly when we're in conflict, what we're trying to do is get our point across and have someone let us win the argument. But if you're actually more interested in solving something, you have to find what actually is solvable. So for me that's why I would ask what were you trying to say in that communication? Because I'm trying to solve the thing that I know is solvable, which is probably either I misunderstood him or he miscommunicated something that's easy to solve. That's the main piece, and then the third one at the end is I.

Speaker 3: 40:48

We almost always at the end of an argument, after we've resolved it is we just physically restore affinity, we give each other a hug, and then what we say is do we know what happened? Could we do something different in the future? And we just really listen at that point. Is intuition useful in this point? And it's like we're both very intuitive. So it's like what could we create for the future that would circumvent this kind of thing? And sometimes there's no way to avoid it. But as an example, moms me saying stuff about his mom, him saying stuff about my mom that is a good way to get in an argument. So we have an agreement to not talk about moms when it's in relationship to something. That is a little bit frustrating.

Speaker 3: 41:45

That seems to work pretty well.

Speaker 2: 41:47

Yes, and again I want to highlight the dialogue that is, I think, necessary in order for this trust to be built, and so I want to offer to everybody that's listening to be lean into that dialogue, lean into asking the questions, lean into what was your intention, what did you mean by that? That hurt my feelings when you said, like really being honest and therefore opening up the door for more honesty and I love the very clear boundaries that you all are setting too Everything can be solved through communication. Even if we were to part ways, we're going to communicate about that so that nobody is blindsided. And also, like you're saying, it takes this pressure, takes the edge off, because you are, you've both determined what the focus is ahead of time Verbalize it Not just thought about it and I just like, oh yeah, we're both on the same page, we feel it.

Speaker 2: 42:34

No, you've actually verbalized, we will communicate this out, we will not talk about moms, and I think that that is really important, and I think that's something that gets overlooked of like, oh well, he knows, that's my button, but I love that you're like no, explicitly say it, make sure that we are on the same page. And then to debrief it afterwards is something that I'm going to need to put in my back pocket now, and I love that that let's check in. Now that we have reconciled, I'm glad that we're on the same page. Would we tell the same story about this? What is your story about this? What is mine? And how do we ensure, if we can, that I or you, or we do or do not take this action? I just need to get in and then I get in my back pocket.

Speaker 3: 43:19

Well, and I'll say and I think probably people know is that I mean gosh, stephen and I met in 2002. So we have been friends for 21 years, but we've been together a really long time and so you could say that we know everything there is to know about each other. But as a reminder to anyone and this goes for a spouse, this goes for your own parent, this goes for your best friend, this goes for anyone that you have a relationship with we are not objects, we are not static things like our phones or like something that is unchanging, right, we grow, we change. So if you're relating to your partner, that you know that they know how you feel about that thing, maybe not. And if you think you know how they feel about that thing, maybe not. So it does seem annoying and I get it, and I have clients tell me of this all the time like, oh my God, this is so much communication. I'm like it really is. Yeah, we didn't have anybody model this for us.

Speaker 3: 44:32

You know, like I think of, like one of my favorite shows when I was a kid, which was the Cosby show, right, and sometimes you would see Claire, and, you know, her husband, having a conversation to the side about their kids, but for the most part they had a really strong and beautiful marriage. But you don't actually know what caused it to be that, because most of those kind of things quote unquote were all happening off scene. You know, like how they resolved conflict and how they kept coming back together over and over and over again. There's just not very many examples of what that looks like. So I can just say from someone who is from a divorced family that being in a marriage as long as I have like being married and being in relationship, like at my age my mom hadn't been in a relationship this long.

Speaker 2: 45:22

So you know like we're doing something right as a measure talking like, okay, I need to stop myself because I'm if you will come back, if you would, let me invite you back. I would love to do just a whole other episode on relationship, on your conception story, because I'm thinking about my clients that are dating and how do I know that this is the right person and how do I navigate that using my intuition? I just feel like that's going to be a whole other conversation for us to have. I have enjoyed having you so much, but I don't want to end our conversation when I ask you one more beautiful question to wrap us up what is one nugget and you can choose which nugget of wisdom you like to give, either with relationship or with intuition.

Speaker 2: 46:03

One thing that, like comes up a lot with your clients that you are very often offering. What would that nugget be?

Speaker 3: 46:15

Because we were just talking about relationship. Here's the nugget of wisdom that was given to me when we did marriage prep in 2009, after we got engaged 2010. You are 100% responsible for your own happiness and your partner is 100% responsible for their own happiness. Your job in relationship is not to make your partner happy. Your job is to have them be happy, or so if you notice you are unhappy in your relationship, what that doesn't mean is that it's your job to fix your partner so that they then be the person you want them to be, so that they make you happy. What that means.

Speaker 3: 47:03

This is so hard, which is why I'm offering it.

Speaker 3: 47:07

You have a responsibility to discover and understand what makes you happy, because if you don't, how the heck are you supposed to ask your partner for what you need if you don't know what makes you happy? And if you ask your partner for what you need person you're dating, et cetera and they can't give it to you, that's okay, because the second half of that is you are totally and completely trusting yourself that you can take care of what your needs are for having yourself be happy. If you ask your partner for 10 things, they say no to 10 things and that's a whole different conversation. But if they can't do that one thing, right where they always do the dishes and you don't have to ask them, or they remember that you like the pink towel instead of the purple one, and why do they always give you the purple one, like? If it's that kind of thing, get over it. Be 100% responsible for your own happiness, because that will make the difference when life gets hard. Because life gets hard, it really does.

Speaker 2: 48:19

Absolutely, I wouldn't say life be life in Life, be out here life in.

Speaker 3: 48:25

So be life in that is so real.

Speaker 2: 48:30

Oh, my goodness, I've had so much fun. I'm so excited Mariah's just claiming it that you're coming back. Where can people find you? Connect with you, learn more about you and your husband?

Speaker 3: 48:41

Find me on Instagram. That's the best way. It's Shashana French Stokes and I share about my husband's business. He's a healer and he's an artist and he's at healer artist on Instagram and if you find me on Instagram, dm me. I'll invite you to the community I have. We have a free community called Into the Woo. For practical people who are a little bit woo, it's a free community where we chat every week about all these things we just talked about in this podcast.

Speaker 2: 49:09

Wonderful. I'm going to put all of this in the show notes as well, so people can find you and find your website. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for spending some time with me, shoshana. It's been such a joy. Thank you all, friends. I'll see you next week. Hey friend, if you like this podcast, I would love it if you give us a five star rating. Share it with your friends. Share it with somebody another girl, boss, babe that you know is grinding, showing up as her best self, and can maybe use some support on her way. If you're interested in one-on-one coaching, if this podcast resonates with you and you're ready for some one-on-one support support for you and your journey go ahead to nandikamillecom to learn more or head over to nandikamilleasme to sign up for your free discovery call. I'll see you soon, queen.